Back to all Articles
Canon Ambassador Evgenia Arbugaeva has had great success with still images. Her documentary work, which often focuses on isolated individuals in remote locations, has earned her accolades including a National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship and an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography in New York.
However, for one particular project Evgenia decided photographs weren't enough to tell the full story. Instead, in collaboration with her brother, cinematographer Maxim Arbugaev, she made her first-ever film: a 25-minute documentary titled Haulout. Naturalistic and meditative, it focuses on the growing impact of climate change on the Arctic Ocean's walrus population.
Haulout was nominated for an Academy Award in the 2023 Best Documentary Short Film category and won accolades from both the American Film Institute and the International Documentary Association (IDA) – an extraordinary start to Evgenia's filmmaking career.
Developing the idea
The initial idea for the film came while Evgenia was working on another project, documenting the indigenous Chukchi community on the shores of the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Circle. While travelling with them on a hunting trip, she landed on a desolate beach where a small wooden hut stood.
"The sand was dark, almost like it had been burned, and there were lots of bones around," she explains. "The hunters said that every year, thousands of walruses haul out onto this beach and a scientist comes to study them. It sounded really interesting."
The next year, in 2019, she returned with her brother, met marine biologist Maxim Chakilev, and photographed the walruses.
Evgenia is fascinated by individuals who work in solitary environments, such as lighthouse keepers and meteorologists, but in this case, there was also a bigger story to tell. The walruses travel to that area as part of their annual migration cycle and in the past have rested on the sea ice. Now, due to global warming, there is no longer sea ice at this time of year and they are forced onto the beach.
As a result, the number of walruses on land has dramatically increased and up to 100,000 animals are estimated to come ashore in the area, filling all available space. They are easily alarmed, which leads to stampedes, resulting in many walruses being trampled and killed.
"The story was so compelling but so scary at the same time," says Evgenia. "Here, in this particular spot, you can immediately see the effect of global warming on this population."
In 2020, Evgenia and Maxim decided to make a film and contacted Maxim Chakilev, who was keen for them to join him. He started his fieldwork in August, and the trio lived in the hut for three months.
Do you own Canon kit?
Register your kit to access free expert advice, equipment servicing, inspirational events and exclusive special offers with Canon Professional Services.
Join CPS now
Filming on location with the EOS R5
Evgenia chose to make the film with her Canon EOS R5. "As I was completely new to the filmmaking process, I didn't want to have to familiarise myself with a different camera," she says. "I really appreciated the EOS R5's lightness and compact body, which allowed me to be more confident with my movements.
"I usually use autofocus when shooting still images, so working with the focusing ring as I shot was new to me. I found the camera's focus peaking feature [which outlines the in-focus parts of the scene in a colour of your choice] was a great tool."
Haulout includes a wide range of shots and to cover them all, Evgenia and her brother Maxim used several Canon lenses including the Canon RF 50mm F1.2L USM and the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM. However, for Evgenia, her usual go-to lens for photography is the Canon RF 24-70mm F2.8L IS USM lens and it was the same with video.
"In a small, confined place like the hut, I needed a wide-angle lens and 24mm is as wide as I go," she says. "The 70mm end of the lens is great for portraits and for filming the walruses, because we were so close to them – we just opened the door and there they were."
Challenges on the shoot
Apart from the obvious challenges of living in a small, remote hut for three months, one practical difficulty was keeping their respective batteries charged. "We had to use a generator which produced quite a bit of noise and smell, so we were limited in terms of powering up our batteries," says Evgenia. "We had to be really careful in selecting what to shoot, when we rolled and when we stopped."
The walruses themselves – which can grow up to 3.6 metres long and weigh up to 1,700kg – also presented challenges during filming. "Even though they can look aggressive, they're very vulnerable because they're not in their natural environment," she explains. "They're very alert and get scared by unusual smells or sounds, such as the noise from the generator. Once they're scared, they start to panic, which can cause a massive stampede. So we had to be careful not to worry them."
This meant it was impossible for Evgenia and Max to stand at full length at times, as walruses get scared of unknown upright objects due to their poor vision. "We had to be very careful filming from the roof, and get to the filming position by crawling very slowly and not standing up," she continues. "On the beach, when in close proximity to walruses, we had to stay very low."
Editing the footage
After the shoot was completed, Evgenia and Maxim returned home with around 60 hours of footage, most of which was shot as 4K DCI RAW video files and in Canon Log. They chose to shoot in 4K and not a higher resolution partly to reduce the amount of storage space needed but also to avoid using the generator too often to power the equipment when uploading the files.
Another challenge arose when they had to edit the footage down to the final 25-minute film. Evgenia did this in collaboration with film editor Joshua Chadwick. "We decided on a simple structure of linear storytelling and a tight story from beginning to end," says Evgenia. "Doing that felt natural and uncomplicated and I felt the contrast – a simple structure but a complex and very sad subject – was a good way of telling the story."
Sound was another important element in the film. There's no music, and dialogue is restricted to Maxim Chakilev's recorded observations. Instead, we hear the roar of the waves and the wind, and the calls of the walruses and seabirds. The sound heard in the final film was mainly recorded on separate audio recorders.
"We knew sound was going to be really important and we worked quite a bit on it in post-production with our sound designer Anastasia Dushina," Evgenia reveals. "It was fascinating to see how much the visuals worked differently once they were outlined by the sound."
Should stills shooters learn video skills?
Photojournalists Ilvy Njiokiktjien and Magnus Wennman discuss the value of video, their own experiences with the format and the kit they rely on to tell stories with moving images.
Read more
Transitioning from stills to video
Although working with video was challenging, Evgenia enjoyed the learning process. "It was exciting for me to explore a different language for storytelling," she says. "I noticed that my mind was working completely differently when directing and using movement and sound. I was thinking more about the structure of the story and what we needed to film."
But what did Evgenia miss about shooting photography? "I missed the fragmented nature of photography; for a film, you need to capture an audience's attention for the full length and work carefully with the time the viewers give you," she says. "The biggest difference is that filmmaking gives you more layers in storytelling, like adding sound. But having said that, this experience made me appreciate photography even more.
"Now that I've made this film, it doesn't mean I'm going to be a filmmaker. Both mediums are just so beautiful and special on their own that I think I'll keep switching between the two."
Watch Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev's Academy Award-nominated Haulout.
David Clark